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Fantasy League Thoughts and Blog
 

I just wanted to bring some of the issues out of the thread, especially after the same issues came up a couple of times and I expect that to continue. I'd love if any other issues or concerns could be raised here to keep the thread clear for signups. So, here's some quick thoughts about some of the perceived issues with the league setup.


I think that Ninja is about where he should be, and 3.5 is what should be the upper limit for all players. Mafia, Myuu, Poker and Flash are really too costly to consider. This is definitely an oversight by me, I did try to generate a bunch of teams and it all looked good, but then today we saw the choices people made and this exposed the issue.

So first of all, my apologies to those 4 guys who I think are going to get looked over in the fantasy draft through no fault of their own. In fact, the reason they are getting looked over is because they did so brilliantly well last season.

tgun came up with what I think is the best solution - to open trade weeks. Since once the season kicks off, last season's results don't matter one bit, players' points will reflect this season alone. Therefore, those lads should be able to find homes during the trade week - and, honestly, I think many players will be scrambling to take them. The first trade week, after week 3, should mean that even if Mafia goes off to a flying 3-0 (or better) start, people should be able to get him for their team if they really want him - there can't really be THAT big a disparity unless a bunch of A-teamers from a bunch of teams fail to show up for those 3 weeks.

mOOnGLaDe is too cheap

I actually don't consider this broken. I think it's certainly a quirk that it's easier to fit glade into your team than some other insanely good yet not quite glade-level players. I truly think it makes the league interesting more than it breaks anything. Here's my response to this from the thread where it came up...

Why is Flash worth so much?

First of all, please note there was an issue. When I originally created the cap, it was 14.5. I shared it with some bouses who promptly demonstrated some really crazy lineups that were able to just squeeze into 14. So, the cap was reduced. I didn't check after this change to make sure that Flash could be picked on a team - 5.33 made this impossible. I reduced his value to 5.25 (and as I said, this shouldn't impact his likelihood at being drafted, but it has made it at least possible).

With that out of the way, here's the response from the thread about how Flash is valued the way he is

Re: Fantasy League Thoughts and Blog
 

What?!? Fantasy team is just that, a fantasy. It has always been a fine line between having a top heavy team with one or two very top players and filling the rest of the team with relatively cheap players, praying that your top players will score big. Alternatively you could field a team of 4-6 possibly good/possibly dud players, and hope that their value grows enough that you can trade them away, take the profit and invest in cheaper players. This gives your team the opportunity to become rather fat in terms of team value and "bank", allowing for the end of season to look a lot like a Fantasy "Dream" Team.

Fantasy team is meant to be about tactics, research, history and gut feeling. It's meant to be challenging to ensure that all 6 players will contribute to your team. Having Glade that cheap is completely broken as it is no longer a team of 6. The thread can show you already, it has now become a Glade + 5 others fantasy team, with no risk involved.

Taking Glade should be the ultimate risk, which may or may not payoff. With every team (except a few special teams) picking Glade already, it ensures that it is no longer a 6 player team, but rather a who can score the most points with their other 5 players combined.

There is a reason teams fail at the start of a fantasy league in any sport. It's because they risked everything on picking RVP or Rooney in EPL, and then fingers crossed they score the most goals week in/week out, while the rest of the team is made up of fill ins, and also rans. It is the same as taking Gary Ablett in AFL Dream Team, and knowing you can't afford to have Franklin, Watson or Dangerfield. But if you don't pick Ablett, you can fit 2 of those 3 players in your team. Don't you think it would be broken if I could pick Ablett, Watson and Franklin? And know that every other team will also pick them, essentially cancelling the points out.

The same could be said for NFL, Cricket and A-League dream teams (I have examples as I've entered in each) but I've made my point. Glade, based off ranking alone, should cost the most, if not then top 3, so as to not create a Glade + 5 Fantasy League.

You might as well have him on the template at this stage, as it would save 95% of people the time it takes them to copy paste his name in as captain or 2nd choice.

TL;DR - Glade is too cheap, and as a result, is not a risk to any team, even though he is rated No.1 in SEA for 2 (maybe 3) years straight. Fantasy teams are now Glade + 5, and having Glade on every team (except a couple), now cancels out the affect of making him "an easy fit" as you say.

<Apologies - Unnecessary BM was here>

Re: Fantasy League Thoughts and Blog
 

The problem with just judging performance like this is that it's different to fantasy proleague. There, the costs are generated by their performance in fantasy pl, not just map scores. So things like the team winning also play into it. This alleviates part of the issue of the whole "good player being ace every time for a so-so team that doesn't dominate the league as the team points of the players on the best team get them higher, too).

I also think you have weighted the ace matches a bit too heavily for him to be that far ahead of everyone based on 5-1...

Re: Fantasy League Thoughts and Blog
 

It's not different. I used the scoring system to get those values. If we ran fantasy last season, that's his fantasy score each week.

This league's scoring is essentially a copypaste of proleague's. The only difference is you as a fantasy competitor miss out on 1 point per work for picking a team, and I think my reasoning for excluding that is valid. That wouldn't affect the player values though, since that doesn't give individual players any kind of point. This scoring, as with proleague's, awards 6 points for an ace win (1 for appearance, 1 for appearance as ace, and 4 for the win). Just bear in mind that the format of last season meant there was always an ace match, whereas with proleague and xGTL there are fewer ace matches played, so sure, you probably won't get such a massive lead by a player(s) after this season.

The way the values were calculated for players prior to this league starting was to go back over every game of last season, and apply the points system to that as well. Then I calculated each players points earned/games played. PiG would have won overall as fantasy player of the season last season because he played every week and had a record to rival Flash. Most players didn't play every week though, which was why it had to be averaged over number of matches rather than total matches in the season (9).

Take someone like Glade who only played in 5 games, had a record of 2-3 (all as ace), and his score was like 1.68. It was a far better approximation to go by games played than by total games. Of course, now you end up with a situation where someone like Myuu is right at the top after barely any games, so both ends of the scale have issues. But, I feel where we're at is the best place we can be at, all considered. I could only have improved it with an arbitrary points cutoff, and I like the idea of using trade windows to fix this stuff up anyway.

Re: Fantasy League Thoughts and Blog
 

I have a quick question, with the scoring system how it states you get 1 point for team win (with the player on their roster) does that mean if you have more then one player from a team that won you get more points?

i.e i have tgun, mafia and light and they all appear on the roster for a match, which they end up winning. Do i get 3 points for that or just 1?

Re: Fantasy League Thoughts and Blog
 

Yes, you'd get 3 points. Each player individually earns 1 point if they are on the roster to play that week and their team wins, regardless of their individual result.

Say in a scenario, iM goes 3-0 and the 4th match isn't played (nor the ace) because it's not required (not sure if that happens with this format, but if it does...). Player #4 in the lineup is tgun who is on your team. tgun would gain an extra point for the team win that week too. No ace point(s) though because obviously, aces aren't announced unless it actually goes down to the ace match. It can only be earned once by a player as well (so say, mafia is ace, he doesn't get 2 points for his team winning because he played twice - only 1)

Re Moonglade...

Ok, so bear with me while I respond to this... To start with, I'll touch on these points, and why none of these necessitate that glade should have a higher value - I can give sound tactical, historical, research-related and instinct-based reasons why Glade should NOT be a top 3 fantasy player.

Tactics - glade plays in potentially more international and online tournaments than anyone else. For his peers in this league, this league is something to viably prepare for. For glade and maybe glade alone, this league is something that can get in the way of preparation. He won't necessarily be available week in and week out to play. That's why Nv has more than 4 players on its roster.

I also feel that Nv, as one of the strongest teams in this competition, will win games in the first 4 matches the vast majority of the time. While Glade might be their go-to ace, Nv probably won't field an ace very often.

History - Glade's value is based on his performance in this same competition last year, against many of the same opponents. If he didn't do well then, why must he do well now? Sure you might argue his form is better, but you could say the same about the majority of players in this tournament.

Research - Nv's schedule is considerably more difficult in the first half of the season than the second. Someone might take the chance that with Glade potentially missing the first week while in Poland, that they will be able to pick him up in a trade even cheaper than what he's at now i.e. he is overvalued

Gut feeling - I don't think there are many players Glade will come across that he will gameplan too heavily for and the ones he will are spread across only 3 teams. I think more than 3 teams, as well as more players on those 3 teams, have players with the capability to gameplan specifically for glade, with a wealth of history and data available for their study, and snipe him. I also feel like he ahsn't done as well in SEACL tournaments in the past and see no reason this might change in the future.

Glade is not guaranteed to play every match and do well in every match - no one is. If you think he has a strong change of doing well though, you can pick him. You can pick him if he costs more too.

Also, it's not all-kill. Even if Glade does become the monster this season, going 9-0 and Nv somehow gets taken to the ace match every time and Glade goes 9-0 in ace matches as well... The other 5 players need to be performing to some minimum standard. Like you said though, people will pick Glade regardless, just because they expect him to carry their fantasy team. Making him cost more isn't going to stop it happening, and having him cost less creates greater variation among these people. Everyone also has the exact same budget to balance. So everyone playing in the fantasy league is on an equal footing.

As I've said previously, having Glade cost more doesn't stop you from picking 2 of the other upper tier players for your team. It might mean you need to make some slight tweaks, Say you otherwise had Petraeus and KingKong, you might need to trade Pet for iaguz. What is the objective difference between Pet and iaguz? I expect they'll probably split ace duties for Fray, with iaguz maybe seeing a few more ace games than pet, but realistically, I have no idea, and beyond their first game I'm sure Chadmann doesn't either. Who will win more games? Well, that's the gamble!

As long as the players are in the right ball-park value-wise, the system works just fine. Bear in mind that this is the first time the competition has run, and the data we're using is from a clan league where players were frequently rotated to give others a shot, rather than given consistent play. The top of the rankings are held by people who played every or very nearly every match, and were the consistently picked for the ace match. So sure, there are some things that might not be so perfect. Glade *probably should* have a higher value. But like I said, it's a quirk. It adds character. And it doesn't break anything. After a second season where data can be obtained, it will get more accurate. You won't have such a top end disparity. After a 3rd, it gets even better.

Finally, the only way I see to increase Glade's value is to arbitrarily assign a number. The whole league is based on the same scores. Just because one really good player's results were a little worse than expected isn't a reason to throw everything else away. Unless you can suggest a way to give glade a value that is more accurate in an objective manner, then it won't happen. And chances are even if you could, it won't happen this season, since it's already gone out.

Re: Fantasy League Thoughts and Blog
 

I've read what you have replied with, and I thank you for taking the time to reply (not going to quote it as a reply). I won't be participating in this form of the Fantasy league but thank you for putting it on. It is something different for everyone to enjoy, and I appreciate the effort you have put in.

Re: Fantasy League Thoughts and Blog
 

Best post ever.

Re: Fantasy League Thoughts and Blog
 

CeeSerps has a pretty good point and I kinda agree with him that its "broken" with glade being so low on points (there are some others too) I mean the ranking is based off last years performances, a year ago this time alot of players have improved, some have slacked off and aren't as good, like Myuu being on 4.00 doesn't really make sense. There's simply no reason to pick him, that already shows a flaw in the system. IMO there's nothing wrong with tweaking the points if it's going to make it more fun and fair for everyone, but I understand that it may be too late to do so now.

Re: Fantasy League Thoughts and Blog
 

I guess I'm arguing use of the term broken. I would take broken to mean that people must take Glade, he is an automatic choice and wouldn't be if he had a higher value, and people who take Glade will do better than people who don't. That's why I say not broken. I know Glade's potential is higher, but I can't award potential points to everyone, can I? As I've said, I'll call it a quirk, I'll call it "not ideal", but not broken. In saying that, if it turns out at the end of the season that everyone who picked Glade dominates everyone who didn't, then remind me what I said and I'll eat my words.

The other end, like Myuu and yourself, etc IS broken, because people can't actually take these players in a competitive lineup.

Particularly with Myuu, I truly regret not coming up with a solution that let me scale things better for people who played very few games but did very well, since I'm sure there's one possible. But in the end, taking extra time to iron out kinks like this to perfection would delay signups, and give people less time to choose their teams. I truly want people to have the option to look through the schedule, look at matchups, and make strategic choices. I think the beauty of the trade weeks is that it allows that and basically fixes any kind of issue.

Also, just to note - someone with 0 points after week 3 could still end up as league leader. PiG had 3 losses last season.

For other sports leagues, fantasy has been running for often many decades, and prior to being started up, there is decades of history for the league itself, and usually years of history for star players. We don't have that luxury just yet. I wish we did, but we don't.

Re: tweaking the points, it came up in chatbox and I was prepared to tweak them for players over 3.5. The near-unanimous verdict from everyone else was to keep them as is, and I really do think the trade week is a better solution. At the time, I begrudgingly accepted popular opinion, and since then, my opinion has been swayed.

Make no mistake about it, I appreciate the criticisms, and just because I'm not taking any big steps to correct them now, doesn't mean they aren't lessons learned that I or maybe someone else can take into the next iteration of fantasy league.

Re: Fantasy League Thoughts and Blog
 

yeah it's just every team has like glade-kingkong-pet + 3x 1.75's and there isn't much variation in many of the teams because of those 3 players point values are very cheap. It's not like you have to take any risks to do that, so ppl either do that to be safe or take a huge risk and pick a probably less ideal team just to be different